Siri, Who Am I? tells the story of a Kardashians-obsessed woman who wakes up in hospital with amnesia. With a torn party dress, broken iPhone and Instagram account, she must piece together her identity… only to discover that her life is a perfect lie…

Sam Tschida’s comedy is out now (and it’s optioned to a major Hollywood studio!) and to celebrate we have two copies to give away!

But first, here is a synopsis of Siri, Who Am I?…

Mia might look like a Millennial but she was born yesterday. Emerging from a coma with short-term amnesia after an accident, Mia can’t remember her own name until the Siri assistant on her iPhone provides it. Based on her cool hairstyle (undercut with glamorous waves), dress (Prada), and signature lipstick (Chanel), she senses she’s wealthy, but the only way to know for sure is to retrace her steps once she leaves the hospital. Using Instagram and Uber, she arrives at the pink duplex she calls home in her posts but finds Max, a cute, off-duty postdoc supplementing his income with a house-sitting gig. He tells her the house belongs to JP, a billionaire with a chocolate empire. A few texts later, JP confirms her wildest dreams: they’re in love, Mia is living the good life, and he’ll be back that weekend.

But as Mia and Max work backward through her Instagram and across Los Angeles to learn more about her, they discover a surprising truth behind her perfect Instagram feed, and evidence that her head wound was noaccident. Who was Mia before she woke up in that hospital? And is it too late for her to rewrite her story?

“Mia, my main character wakes up in an LA hospital in a designer dress with no memory,” author Sam Tschida wrote in her recent guest blog for SciFiNow. “She writes off her memory loss as inconsequential because she believes her entire life is on her phone. All she has to do is scroll through her Instagram…”

We have two copies of Siri, Who Am I? to give away in our latest competition – all you have to do is answer the simple question below to be in with a chance. This competition closes on 27 January 2021, so make sure you get your answers in now!

Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida is out now from Quirk Books.

The post Competition: Win a copy of Siri, Who Am I? appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.

Sure, you can dial 911 on your phone or talk to your doctor, but mostly, it’s a portal to somewhere better. Your next phone call, text, or Tweet could be your fortune calling, or at least an invite to the latest celebrity gossip.

So here goes my college-level essay supporting the premise that phones are all about escapism. God, I miss college.

The Batphone

Adam West’s Bat Phone was The Shit, a bright red car phone that served as a direct line to Commissioner Gordon. The Commissioner had a similar red phone that lit up. He kept it in a glass serving dish that looked like it was meant for holding a Bundt cake. There aren’t many reasons to miss the Sixties, but the Bat Phone is one of them.

Who would I want a direct line to? Probably Tim Gunn. If I could pick two, I’d like a three-way with Tim Gunn and Nicole Byer. I know she’d be down. Calm down, Nicole — a three-way conversation! Anyways, why don’t those two have a show?

James Bond’s Gadgets

What guy doesn’t want to be James Bond and be able to page hot chicks? That’s right. Bond had a modified wristwatch in The Spy Who Loved Me, capable of receiving messages from M16. Okay so a pager strapped to your wrist may not be quite as exciting as the exploding wristwatch from Moonraker, but it was still way ahead of its time.  “Do you expect me to talk?” Well, yes.

The Phones From The Jetsons

The Jetsons’ phone is another classic; a Fifties imagining of what the future would look like. Except for the fact that it was the size of an Eighties microwave, The Jetsons got the phone right. The show clearly had an escapist, the-future-will-be-awesome vibe, but the phone wasn’t that fun. Just like with actual FaceTime Martha was worried about her bedhead and most of George’s calls were to work.

Harry Potter’s Floo Powder

Not technically a phone. But with a little floo powder you can stick your head in the fire and visit any other fireplace anywhere in the world! My daughter tells me this is a “fire call” or “head-only travel”. This is pretty escapist, if you don’t consider how uncomfortable it would be lounging on the ground in front of the fireplace.

Short phone calls only, I assume.

E.T Phone Home

Who doesn’t remember the ‘ET phone home’ scene? Even if you don’t remember the movie, you remember the line. Elliot helps ET make a phone to contact his family in outer space using household items, including a Speak And Spell child’s toy. MacGyvering your way off the planet to your true home. Who doesn’t want to do that from time to time?

In Siri, Who Am I?, Mia, my main character wakes up in an LA hospital in a designer dress with no memory. She writes off her memory loss as inconsequential because she believes her entire life is on her phone. All she has to do is scroll through her Instagram.

It’s really the uploaded consciousness trope. You don’t see this trope in romance too much, maybe Steve Martin’s The Man With Two Brains, which now that I think of it, was really sexist. Was that really about getting a smart woman’s brain in Kathleen Turner’s body or am I misremembering? Anyways, if we’ve learned anything from uploaded consciousness tropes in sci-fi, it’s that something always goes wrong. Usually a robotic uprising of some sort. That’s not what happens in my book, but things do go awry.

I don’t know if that was five phones in film, but let’s say it was. Phones capture our imaginations because they let us escape — the moment we’re living in, the planet, whatever. Speaking of that, I have to go. Commissioner Gordon is calling. Just kidding, I should probably walk the dog or something.

I think I’ll name my next dog Commissioner Gordon.

Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida is out now from Quirk Books.

The post Author Guest Blog: Five Iconic Film And TV Phones By Sam Tschida appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.